1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and device for providing downloaded objects to an application, in particular to downloading information from a transport stream so as to provide on request data objects to an application.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known to transmit data objects in a transport stream for downloading by an end user. The objects can include any form of data for use by the end user and can be transmitted in a distributed repetitive form, for instance by means of a data carousel. Often, data objects may be grouped together as data modules such that, for an application of an end user to make use of a particular object, the entire module in which it is contained has to be downloaded from the transport stream. In these circumstances, service providers may group together related objects in respective modules such that, if an end user stores a downloaded module, the access time for the related objects is greatly reduced.
According to the DSM-CC broadcast protocol, objects, such as files, directories, etc, are conveyed to the receivers of end users in the form of BIOP messages carried inside DSM-CC modules. These modules may be broadcast by means of a carousel, each module being reformatted into a plurality of MPEG sections which are broadcast in a distributed form for end users to receive and recombine into the respective modules.
Over time, it is likely that objects will be updated by the service providers. Under these circumstances, it is desirable that, when an application of an end user requests an object, it should receive the latest version of that object. However, if, before the object was updated, the end user had already downloaded the respective module, the application will be provided with the old version of the object as contained in the modules stored by the end user.